


Vita Adventus

by rjn



Category: Sorted (Website) RPF
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, M/M, friends with chocolate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:35:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21663037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjn/pseuds/rjn
Summary: And while the whole point of the cheap card-boxed advents is to leave the torn doors hanging open off their folds to mark the progression of time, he finds it unbearably endearing the way James carefully presses the doors on each of their calendars back into place every morning. The progression of time is better marked in other ways, anyhow.
Relationships: James Currie/Mike Huttlestone
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	Vita Adventus

Last year, when Mike showed up at the studio with a Paul A. Young advent calendar, with the little wooden houses and the delicately wrapped selection of truffles, James was disbelieving in his appreciation. He kept asking if it was _really_ just for him, as if he couldn’t quite understand that it wasn’t for a review or a bit or something else work-related. Once he finally settled on the understanding, that it was a genuine gesture on Mike’s part, sort of an instance of “I saw this and thought of you”, he was thoroughly pleased.

Perhaps not as pleased as this year, when he woke on the first morning to find that not only had Mike picked up another selection of the high-end chocolates to refill the little wooden boxes, but he’d also acquired a couple of ordinary cardboard Cadbury advent calendars, and had inscribed one of their names to each in Sharpie marker. Mike has an overwhelming sense of pride for the _doublé_ sources of chocolate almanac; he’d done a second wonderful thing in James’ eyes!

James is not a morning person in general but it turns out if you offer him a modest portion of mass-produced chocolate, he’s almost annoyingly cheerful. Mike watches him savour the Cadbury with his first coffee each morning, after remarking on the different molded shapes of the chocolate: _This one is a penguin. Why is there always a penguin? The North Pole has no penguins._ Playing up his askew pronunciation of the word _peengween_ more with every iteration until Mike jabs him in the side with a teaspoon and says there’s no fat man with an army of dwarves there either, if he wants to get technical.

And while the whole point of the cheap card-boxed advents is to leave the torn doors hanging open off their folds to mark the progression of time, he finds it unbearably endearing the way James carefully presses the doors on each of their calendars back into place every morning. The progression of time is better marked in other ways, anyhow. Mike’s evolving understanding, this season, that the proper chocolatier advent is for afternoons, when James is fully awake and able to appreciate the delicate notes of hazelnut or ginger or the more obscure seasonal varieties which are presumably things like roast reindeer and elf tears. Mike has also, over time, learned that _there’s an occasion_ for Cadbury even though James has paradoxically declared that Cadbury is _really not his thing._

Tell that to the _peengween_ with its head bit off.

Arguably the best signal of the passage of the year is that now James and his little wooden boxes of chocolates are situated in Mike’s flat. The cheaper advents lay out on Mike’s coffee table. And while they are something like roommates for the most part, James having lost his prior flat to some building redevelopment scheme, there are mornings in this new era that begin with James in Mike’s bed.

It is surprisingly free from awkwardness. Or maybe not so surprising, given that, well, _James._

Mike is starting to like the smooth look of the re-fitted cardboard doors. The illusion that there remain plenty more mornings for James to be annoyed by the geographic inaccuracy of Cadbury signature chocolate molds. The passing of another year could bring a new flat, a new girlfriend, a new boyfriend, or even just a measure of discord in their current arrangement. They are not both at home often enough for friction to develop in a single year, but over time, Mike supposes it may be inevitable. They have startlingly different friends groups and interests.

One late December afternoon, when the calendars are nearly finished, they meet going in opposite directions, James leaving with a stack of wrapped parcels for his family holiday, Mike coming in with a pile of last-minute gifts.

“I’ll trade you all this for your wrapped ones,” Mike offers.

“Hmmm. No,” says James. “Although, there is one for you… somewhere. In there.”

With his hands full, he can only incline his head back in the direction of the flat. Mike looks at him quizzically. They don’t do gifts, really. Instead, they make a point of going out for a nice meal together with increasing frequency leading up to their Christmas holidays.

“It’s for the flat,” James clarifies, and Mike knows immediately what it will be. A replacement flatpack bookshelf, for the one that James had brought with him when he moved, that had lost structural integrity during the reassembly and lists dangerously to one side.

“Oh. Great. Cheers, mate.”

James seems to realize that they won’t see one another again until after the holiday, and he sets his bags down to give Mike a proper hug and a kiss with more heat than Mike had been expecting for outside the flat. Spontaneously, Mike imagines a holiday spent together before he snaps his mind shut on that concept, but as James walks away, he teases again at the idea of bringing James home. He has done, in fact, for a Sunday roast, which James still talks about (a huge point of pride with Mike’s father, who had cooked). Christmas, though, seems a bridge too far for a tentative friendship-roommate-sliding-scale-of-benefits situation.

Once inside, Mike sets his shopping bags down next to the leaning tower of cookbooks and wonders why James hadn’t put the new shelf up before leaving. James is the one who worries about the damage the inevitable collapse will bring. There is, however, an elaborately embossed envelope on the coffee table, set between their depleted twin advent calendars. Oh, gross, James gave the flat a gift card. Or is it? The envelope suggests something more sophisticated than that, and it is giving off… a smell? Caramel, or something similarly sweet.

“Shall we keep it going?” reads the inscription on the front. James’ hand, stark lettering except for the weirdly elaborate flourishes he employs inconsistently on his a’s and g’s. (And f’s, so that if he were to ever write the word giraffe it would look not unlike calligraphy).

Inside the envelope is an announcement of Mike and James’ 2020 subscription from the Chocolate Society. Twelve months of chocolate. As good as a rental agreement, in their language. James has scribbled “No penguins, though” and a sad face in the lower right.

Smiling to himself, Mike scavenges the remaining chocolate from James’ calendars and sets about making a cup of tea to wash it down.


End file.
